


Arcanomachy

by Lithos_Maitreya



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M, Intrigue, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Time Travel, Unreliable Narrator, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-07-14 07:17:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16035608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lithos_Maitreya/pseuds/Lithos_Maitreya
Summary: Rayla never really thought they'd lose the war, but it was always a possibility. What wasn't a possibility was finding herself back before Harrow's assassination kicked everything into gear.Now she and Callum have to find a way to:1. Keep Ezran, Harrow, and Azymondias alive.2. Stop Viren from unleashing a war to end all wars.3. Stop Xadia from unleashing a war to end all wars.4. Stop ANYONE ELSE from unleashing said war.It's not as easy as it sounds, and it doesn't sound easy. At least they're not dead. Anymore.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This show is new, and I have a thing for ambiguously Welsh-Irish elf girls. So I guess we're doing this now.
> 
> No promises as to update pace; my Worm/LotR project, Ring-Maker, absolutely takes priority at the moment. But, well, Peggy Sue is a trope I've done before and know pretty well. And I needed to write SOMETHING.

In the end, it was the cold.

The scratching of the coarse, gravelly sand was nothing compared to the ache of her missing hand, or the burn where the white-hot coin had been embedded in the flesh of her belly. The ink-black sky, devoid of sun, star, or moon was nothing compared to the horror of the voids where Ezran’s eyes should have been. None of these would have been sufficient to rouse her now.

But the cold, slicing into her with knives of frigid air, woke her shuddering.

She forced her reluctant body to uncurl. Her legs would not carry her, as she found after a brief struggle, so she crawled. The black sand, sharp as glass, cut ribbons of skin from her knees and her remaining hand. Still she pressed on. She did not know where she was going, only that she must not stop.

_To stop is to die._

There was Azymondias, his face frozen in a defiant snarl, his teeth bared upwards. The stone of his petrified form was already crumbling where the spells—and the Spells—had burst against his legs and wings, as the battle raged around him. The stone dragon stood alone in the black desert. Nothing rose above the black plain beside him.

And there, nestled in the hollow crook of one of his ankles, was a broken form in the last scraps of a blue jacket.

_Callum._

Rayla crawled forward. Part of her wanted to stop, to turn away. She didn’t want to see Callum’s pale face, so young and yet already aging, creeping towards death and yet dead already. She didn’t want to see his blank eyes staring into the dark sky.

But her traitorous heart pulled her forward as inexorably as any chain, and she followed helplessly.

As she approached, Callum’s body twitched. His head turned towards her. His eyes were closed at first, and Rayla was struck with a horrible, irrational fear that, when he opened them, they would match the dark of the sky. But the thought passed in a moment when he blinked, and blue eyes met hers.

His tongue slipped out of his cracked, dry lips in a futile attempt to wet them. “Rayla.”

“Callum.”

He gave a weak little nod to the ground beside him. “I’m… glad you came. I thought you were gone already.”

“I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

He grinned weakly. “Sit with me?”

She pulled herself closer, and stopped beside him, letting out a sigh of relief as she allowed herself to lean into him, her back against the wall.

With an audible grunt of effort, he raised his left arm and put it around her shoulders, pulling her close. Together they sat, staring up at the black around the stone bulk of Azymondias.

“Didn’t think it’d end like this, somehow,” Callum admitted after a moment that might have been a year. Time didn’t seem to mean much anymore.

“Don’t think anyone did.”

“Yeah, probably not.” His hand came up and rested on her left horn. The weight was comforting, like an embrace. She felt rather than saw his face tense and shift into a frown. “Your horn…” he said. “It’s chipped.”

“Oh, is it?”

“Yeah. You didn’t notice?”

“I can’t feel my horns, Callum. They’re like… fingernails.”

“Oh.” He shifted so that he was looking down at her properly. “I feel like I learn something new about you every day,” he said softly. “Even now.”

She looked up at him. His eyes were misty, and he seemed to be having difficulty focusing on her face. “I guess that’s what happens when you ask so many questions,” she said around the lump in her throat.

He laughed. It was a sound like a dying cough. “I guess so. Everyone always said I was too curious.”

“It’s a good thing,” Rayla assured him. “You respect things enough to ask about them. Most humans aren’t like that.”

“Most elves, too.”

Rayla sighed. “True enough.”

Callum let out a breath. Then he didn’t breath in again for a moment, and when he did, it was almost a gasp.

“Callum?”

“Almost out of time,” he wheezed. “Not much longer.”

“You can hold on,” she said desperately. “I know you humans drop like flies with your sub-centennial lifespan, but you’re not even twenty. Bit early to be goin’, don’t you think?”

He chuckled weakly. “Sorry to disappoint you, Rayla.”

She forced herself to sit up. Her had sought his where it rested on her horn. “You could never disappoint me, Callum,” she said, and was astonished at how choked her voice was. “Never.”

He was silent for a moment. “Look around,” he said at last, his voice thick. “Look at all this. We could have stopped this. _I_ could have stopped this.”

“Funny,” she said, squeezing his hand. “I was goin’ to say the same thing. _I_ could have, too. We could never have known.”

He met her eyes. “I’m glad you’re here,” he mumbled, his eyelids flickering. “I didn’t want to be alone.”

“You’re not. Not while I’m here.”

The first time she had kissed Callum, it had been like fireworks going off behind her eyes. His lips were soft and warm, and his heartbeat had thundered, impossibly close to her own.

This time, his lips were chapped and cold, and his heart was barely beating in his chest. But, then, she wasn’t much better off.

She pulled away. His eyes were half-lidded, and on his face was a ghost of that same stupid, dopey smile he always seemed to have on his face when she surprised him. His breath rattled in his lungs as he breathed in. “I wish we had more time,” he said.

“So do I.” She squeezed his hand again.

His eyes closed. His head leaned on her shoulder. “I love you, Rayla.”

It took her a moment to muster a reply. “I love you too, Callum.”

But, by that time, his hand on her horn had grown limp. He had breathed out, and he did not inhale again.

She squeezed her eyes shut, but no tears came. She was too dried out, had cried too much.

And there, under the umbrella of Azymondias, with Callum slumped on her shoulder, Rayla allowed herself to drift away.

* * *

 

“Rayla!”

Her eyes snapped open. Her hand went for her dagger. The blade extended from the hilt and was at the throat of the man who had woken her before a moment had passed.

Runaan stared at her, his eyes wide. “…Rayla? Are you all right?”

She stared back. Her mouth fell open. “Runaan? What?” She withdrew her blade slowly, uncertainly.

The dead elf who had once been like a father to her blinked at her, his brow furrowed in concern. “What is wrong, Rayla? Did you have a nightmare?”

She stared at him, then past him, at the Katolian forests lit with the golden-orange light of sunset. “I… Nightmare?” she mumbled, blinking.

Runaan’s frown deepened. He stretched out a hand, touching her brow. “You don’t seem feverish.”

She slapped his hand away. “I’m not sick,” she growled. “Where are we? What’s going on?”

“We are halfway into the kingdom of Katolis,” Runaan replied, an edge to his voice. “The moon will be full _tomorrow_. Rayla, I need to know _now_ if you cannot proceed with the mission.”

“What _mission_ —” Rayla cut herself off. She knew. She had known from the moment she’d seen the forest of eastern Katolis around her, and seen Runaan in the flesh, instead of trapped behind a wall of gold.

“What do you mean, _what mission_?”

“Sorry,” Rayla said, shaking her head. “I… the assassination. I had… yes. Nightmares.”

 _Nightmares_. And was that all? The end of Xadia, the death of the world, the last stand of Azymondias… had it all been just a dream?

Had _Callum_ been a dream?

Runaan looked at her, a stern edge to his features masking the concern in his eyes. “Well, shake it off,” he advised. “Night is falling, and we must be within a stone’s throw of the castle before daybreak.”

She nodded. “Right. Let’s go, then.”

It was only once she had her pack on her back and had started her trek behind the others that it sunk in what she had just agreed to continue. The phantom ache of the binding ribbon on her hand burned into her, making her almost lose her grip on her blade.

_Ezran._

She gritted her teeth and forced herself to keep walking. _What am I goin’ to do now?_

The night passed on in silence. Runaan shot a few inscrutable glances her way, but she did not meet his gaze. Call it irrational, but Runaan had always been able to notice when she was plotting mischief, and it had been more than a year since she’d last had to hide anything from him. Better not to risk it.

They stopped for a meal a little past midnight. Runaan sat beside her and passed her a vial of moonberry juice. “Rayla,” he murmured. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’ve been distracted,” Runaan countered. “It hasn’t impacted your performance, but this is the easy part of our mission. We cannot afford to lose focus tomorrow night.”

Rayla didn’t answer.

“What did you dream?” Runaan pressed. “What has you so unsettled?”

For a moment she considered just telling him everything. The worst he could do was fail to believe her, send her home, perhaps. He might even call off the mission, given that they had not yet bound themselves and still had the luxury.

She followed that thought through. If she told him, and he believed her, they could potentially prevent any of the horrible events of the coming year before they ever happened. If he did not believe her, she would at least be free of the awful binding to Ezram’s death. Azymondias had saved her once, but she couldn’t expect a miracle twice over.

But in that case, there were a few distinct possibilities, and most of them involved her going home to Xadia before ever having set foot in Katolis’ capitol.

And she still wanted to be sure. Perhaps it _had_ all been a dream. She couldn’t _know_ , not yet.

And if she was right? If it all had been real? She couldn’t allow Runaan and the others to kill Ezran. She couldn’t allow Callum to face Viren alone. There was too much at stake, and she might be all that stood between her best friends and death.

But when she shook her head and told Runaan “I can’t really remember,” her motivation wasn’t as selfess as she tried to convince herself it was. Deep down, she knew. She just wanted to see Callum again.

“You must remember something, or it wouldn’t bother you so,” Runaan said, infuriatingly reasonable.

Rayla bared her teeth in the dark, but forced her voice to remain level. “It was… dark,” she said. The best lies, after all, were founded in truth. “People died. People I cared about. People I knew. And it was… was my fault. I let everyone down.” And that was her voice breaking. She hadn’t _meant_ to get emotional. There would be time for that later.

Runaan squeezed her shoulder gently. “You have let no one down, Rayla,” he said quietly, and she almost burst out laughing. “It was just a dream.”

She didn’t know whether she hoped he was right or not. And wasn’t that horrible? How could even some small part of her traitorous heart _hope_ that Callum and Ezran had never been more than figments of her imagination? “I know,” she lied aloud. “I’m sorry. I’ll get over it soon.”

He nodded. “I trust that you will, Rayla. You know what is at stake.”

“I do.”

He watched her for a moment more before standing and extending a hand. “We should keep moving. We’ve far more ground to cover before daybreak.”

She nodded and took his hand, allowing him to pull her to her feet.

They walked on. Hours passed in silence. Dawn approached. The waxing gibbous moon had sunk behind the mountains, and the night was cast in darkness.

It began to rain. Thunder rolled from above. The storm was heavy and thick, water leaving the narrow paths and branches slick and treacherous beneath their feet.

Rayla’s vision was blurring. She was so _tired_. She might have slept that day, but she _felt_ as though she’d been awake for weeks.

She narrowly dodged a bush in her path, and was suddenly stopped by Runaan’s hand on her shoulder. She looked up.

There was a human in the road, patrolling, a crossbow over his shoulder. And she _remembered him._

Slowly, she sank down into cover. The others followed her lead—and not a moment too soon. Lightning flashed overhead without incident. The man passed on, and did not notice them.

They were safe. And the assassination of Harrow and Ezran was now without obstacle.

The bottom dropped out of Rayla’s stomach. _What am I goin’ to do now?_

They made camp in a clearing which, by the absence of tracks or clear trails, was seldom if ever frequented by humans. Rayla offered to take the first watch, but Runaan shook his head. “You’re dead on your feet, Rayla,” he said, watching her closely. “You need rest. The coming night will need us all at our best.”

“When will be bind ourselves?” asked one of the others. For a terrible moment, Rayla couldn’t remember her name. Then it came—Syalla.

“After the first watch,” said Runaan. “For now—all of you, make camp, and get some rest.” He looked up into the drizzle. The thunder had stopped. “The storm is coming to a close. It should be a clear full moon.”

Rayla obeyed, setting up her small tent in the shade of a tree and curling up inside. The moment she was secure inside, she allowed herself to fall apart.

She cried silently, carefully keeping the tears from leaving tracks down her face. Once she had stopped shuddering, and her breathing had eased, she dried her face and washed it with a bit of water from her waterskin, curled herself against the trunk of the tree, hugged her arms around herself, and rocked herself to sleep.

She dreamed of Callum.

* * *

 

Runaan awoke her a few hours later. “Rayla, it is time.”

She stared at him for a moment before nodding. Her mind was already racing. _What to do?_

She stepped out of her tent. The others were already gathered.

Runaan pulled out the binding cords as they formed their circle.

“Four full moons past, on the eve of the winter’s turn, the humans crossed into Xadia and murdered the king of the dragons,” he said. It was as much a part of the ritual as the binding itself—the recitation of the wrongs, the cause of the vengeance. “Then they destroyed his only egg, the dragon prince.” He pulled the ribbon tight around his bicep. “Tonight, we bind ourselves to justice.”

“My breath for freedom!”

_The freedom to drive an entire race out of Xadia for the crimes of a few?_

“My eyes for truth!”

_The truth none of us ever began to guess at?_

“My strength for honor!”

_The honor of a silent murder in the night?_

“My blood for justice!”

_The justice of killing a child?_

Rayla found herself almost choking on the hypocrisy of it all. How had she ever been so blind? And yet even now, even after all she had learned in the past year… it would have been so easy to slip into the familiar role. To cry out, ‘My heart for Xadia!’ and fulfill the task, never worrying about what was right and what was hidden.

She became aware of five pairs of elfin eyes on her. “Rayla?” Runaan asked, almost hesitant.

“I can’t.” She spoke in a tumble, the words practically falling unbidden out of her mouth. She stepped backwards, away, as Runaan’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry.”

“Rayla, if this is about your dream—”

“It was more than a dream. I saw our future, Runaan. And if we carry out this deed, if we spill Harrow’s—or worse, _Ezran’s_ —blood like this, in cold vengeance, the cycle will never stop. Not until it’s consumed the whole world.”

Runaan’s eyes narrowed. “They killed—”

“I know what they’ve done,” Rayla snapped. “I know it better than you do, I’m sure. I also know more about this than you possibly could. The dragon prince, the last egg—it _survived_.”

“Impossible.”

“It’s true. I’ll show it to you. It’s in their High Mage’s vault. He’s goin’ to use it to fuel a Greater Spell, Runaan. _That’s_ what we need to stop, instead of wastin’ our time with _revenge_.”

Runaan paled. “A _what_?”

The others were staring at her, bemused, but she paid them no mind. Runaan was a Crescent Blade. He _knew_ what a Greater Spell was, what the Old Magic was capable of. And he knew that she _shouldn’t_. “You heard me,” she said, desperate. “A Greater Spell. If he’s not stopped, he could use it to walk into Xadia unopposed. We have to get that egg—” A buzzing in her horns stopped her. She reached up, touched one. It was vibrating faintly.

“Rayla, what—” Runaan began, but he stopped too, his face paling even more, if that was possible. “We are being watched. A spell. How did they know we were here?”

“They don’t.” Rayla could barely muster the breath to speak. She knew this magic—knew how it crackled beneath her fingertips, as though charged with static. She felt it circle her once, twice, like a playful Will-o’-the-Wisp, before turning and flitting back towards the castle town. She had to resist the urge to turn and reach for it, to beg it to return, to carry a message back.

“If they didn’t know we were here before, they certainly do now,” Runaan growled as a breeze picked up, rustling the boughs above them. “That was a scry of some kind. They have found us.”

“Then what do we do?” asked one of the other elves, Bregan, watching Rayla warily. “The moon _is_ still full tonight. We have a chance, whether or not they know we’re coming.”

“I won’t let you.” Rayla wasn’t sure where the words came from, but she knew they were true, just as surely as she knew where that spell had come from.

“Rayla—”

“Tonight,” she interrupted Runaan, speaking loudly enough to be heard over the rising gale, “You’ll come to the castle. I know you won’t be stopped. And I’ll be there with the dragon prince, to show you that your vengeance is unfounded.”

“If you speak truth— _if_ —that only justifies sparing the boy,” Runaan said. “What of the king? Are you going to tell us that the Dragon King is merely being stored in their dungeons?”

She grit her teeth. “No. The king is dead.”

“Then so will theirs be.”

It was justice—if justice could be served only in blood and tears. Rayla’s gut rebelled at the notion—but only partly out of a revulsion at the cruelty and senselessness of it all. Mostly, she just didn’t want to orphan Callum if she could avoid it. “I won’t let you.”

“ _Why not?_ What is your reason this time, Rayla?”

“Because King Harrow is…” she stopped. She shook her head. The wind whipped her hair about, and she struggled to keep it out of her face. “You wouldn’t understand. He should live. It’s _better_ if he lives.”

“Better for _whom_?”

Rayla bit her lip. “I…”

“Rayla—”

Suddenly, a blast of air flattened all the grass in the clearing, and then dispersed. The wind in the clearing died suddenly—save for a localized windstorm beside her, whirling like a tornado.

Out of the tornado stepped a familiar boy. His face a little less hard and a lot less scarred, his brown hair a little shorter, but his green eyes were as bright and sharp as ever. In his hand was a Primal Stone of Sky, the same one which had been broken hatching Azymondias almost a year ago.

Callum held out his empty hand, lightning arcing from one finger to another. His young face was set in a cold, hard expression. “That’s my father you’re talking about,” he said.

The other elves jumped into motion. Blades were drawn, bows were unslung, arrows were nocked. Rayla tried to move, tried to do _anything_ , but it was all she could do to stay on her feet, staring at Callum. He was _alive_.

“You are Prince Ezran?” growled Runaan.

“No. I’m Callum, his brother.”

“It’s a dark mage,” hissed Syalla.

“Excuse you, I don’t touch Dark Magic,” Callum countered. “But I _am_ a mage. And a pretty good one, if I do say so myself.”

“How did you find us?” Runaan asked coldly.

“I scried you. You felt it.”

“And how did you _know where to scry_?”

Callum’s eyes darted to Rayla. His gaze was electric; that one moment set her heart racing. “To borrow a friend’s words,” he said, “I had a nightmare last night.”

Runaan’s eyes widened. He took a step back. “That…”

“Unbelievable, I know. Believe me, I’m having a hard time, too.” Callum lowered his hand slightly. “Look, I’d really appreciate it if you _didn’t_ kill King Harrow. I don’t want to fight you, but I will if I have to.”

“One boy against six Moonshadow Elves?” sneered one of the others. His name, Rayla could not remember. She wasn’t sure she’d ever known it. “Even if you are a mage, you don’t—”

“Five.” Everyone turned to her, except Callum, who seemed to be avoiding her gaze. _Oh, did I say that out loud?_

“What?” Runaan barked.

 _Too late to turn back now._ “I said, _five_.” Rayla raised her swords, facing the other elves. “I won’t let you hurt Callum.”

“You _know_ this human?” Syalla asked.

“You shared your vision,” Runaan guessed. “This… nightmare. This future you saw. He was in it.”

Rayla nodded.

Runaan considered her. “I do not believe you are lying,” he said at length. “I think I would be able to tell… but I cannot be sure.”

“Let me offer you a deal, then,” Callum said. “Tonight the moon will be full. No one knows you’re coming. You’ll have no resistance. I won’t tell anyone. Then, tonight, before you attack the castle, meet me at the gate, and I’ll have the dragon prince’s egg.”

Runaan narrowed his eyes. “And if we attack the king first?”

Callum didn’t bat an eye. “Then you’ll never find the egg,” he promised. “I’ll get it away from the High Mage _and_ from you, and I’ll hide it under the strongest secrecy runes I know. It’s easier to hide something than to find it, if you know the right spells. It would take a hundred Starbright Seeker-Mages a hundred years at least to find it.”

“And what assurance do we have that you will tell no one about us?”

“Apart from the fact that I could have done that instead of _teleporting here_? Nothing. I guess you’ll have to trust me.”

“And me,” Rayla put in, stepping forward. “I’m goin’ with him.”

Runaan considered her. “I doubt there’s any stopping you,” he said eventually. “And if and when you greet us at the gates with the egg—what then?”

“Then you take it, and me, back to Xadia—and leave King Harrow and my brother alive.”

Rayla’s head whipped around to stare at Callum. His face was set, and he studiously refused to meet her gaze. _Take Zym to Xadia? Are you out of your mind, Callum?_

“Why should we take you?” Runaan asked with a faint sneer. “You do recall that we _banished_ your kind from Xadia, yes?”

“Oh, you’d rather leave a primal archmage in Katolis?” asked Callum. “Sure. I just assumed you’d want a hostage, but if you’d rather just leave me here, I’m fine with that.”

_Oh, come on, Callum, that bluff is so obvious no one in their right mind would—_

“You make a good point. Very well. You will return with us to Xadia.” Runaan bared his teeth. “Taking King Harrow’s son will have to suffice as our revenge, for now.”

Rayla blinked once at Runaan, forcing herself to resist the urge to put her face in her hands. She turned back to Callum. “Well?” she asked. “We’ve got work to do.”

He nodded, finally meeting her eyes. For the first time since the conversation began, the ice in his eyes thawed slightly, leaving them green and warm and familiar. He held out a hand. “I know you don’t like teleportation,” he said. “But…we are a _little_ short on time.”

They weren’t. They had all day to get into one secret passage, down into the vault, and steal the egg. As long as they didn’t run into Claudia or Viren, it would take a matter of minutes. But Rayla wanted as much time as she could snatch alone with Callum, so she took his hand without complaint.

He pulled her close—not strictly necessary for the spell, but she didn’t complain. Then he let go of her hand and gestured with his fingers, drawing a complex rune in the air. “Iterantur,” he intoned.

The wind picked up. Her hair whipped around her face, Callum’s jacket billowed around them both. It spun like a localized tornado, the wisps of clouds thickening until they obscured the other elves.

“Rayla!” Runaan’s voice seemed to come from a long way off. “Be careful!”

“I will!” she called back.

A moment later, the wind was dying around her, and she was stumbling backwards into Callum. The small bedroom was unfamiliar, but she knew instantly that it was Callum’s. The bed was unmade, the desk—and the floor around it—was strewn with books, scrolls, and sketches of everything from flowers to mountains.

However, one drawing, atop the pile, stood out. It was recent, the pencil dust had not even fallen from the page. There, on the paper, she saw her own face staring back at her. She stepped away from Callum and picked up the drawing. She ran her fingers along the lines, tracing her own pointed ears, the dark horns, the amused half-smile on her lips.

It was almost painfully accurate. Not for the first time, she wished she had a similar talent.

Callum cleared his throat. “I… wasn’t sure it wasn’t a dream, when I woke up,” he said quietly. “I needed to… to remember. To capture you before I forgot what you looked like. In case it was a dream.”

“It’s… it’s alright,” she said, her voice slightly high and uneven. “You got the nose a bit wrong, though.”

“Did I?” he asked, his voice concerned as he strode over to peer over her shoulder. Just as he came up behind her, she turned, grabbed him by the collar, and pulled him in for a kiss.

His arms came up and pulled her close, and for a moment everything else faded away. There was only his lips on hers, his heartbeat beside hers, his warmth encompassing her. Then she pulled away, breathless, her face radiating heat. “No,” she admitted. “It’s pretty much perfect, actually.”

He grinned at her, and pulled her in again, but not for a kiss this time. Instead, they simply held one another, taking comfort in one another’s presence.

And if they both cried, well, that was all right. It wouldn’t be the first time.

* * *

 

After that, it was time to talk.

“So that was Runaan,” Callum said. “I like him.”

Rayla raised an eyebrow. “He did nearly attack you, you know.”

“Yeah, but I’m human, that’s his job. He trusts you. Cares about you. That’s a good point in my book.”

Rayla smiled and leaned against him. They were sitting on his bed, looking out the window at the walls of Castle Katolis.

“You really plan to take Azymondias to Xadia?” she asked. “You _know_ what the Sorcerer’s Conclave is going to do with him.”

“Not if we don’t let them,” Callum said grimly. “Zym is a _person_ , not a vessel for Old Magic.”

“They don’t see it that way. The last king was a vessel for a Greater Spell for over a thousand years. They don’t see the harm.”

“We’ll find a way to show them. Either way, we’re not just handing over Zym once we get to Xadia. But he’ll be safer there than here, where Viren can do the same thing except with Dark Magic.”

“That’s true.” She sighed. “I wish we could bring Ezran with us. It’d be like old times.”

“Ezran’s needed here,” said Callum, shaking his head. “I’m going to miss him, but King Harrow will _need_ his heir. Not just to pass the throne to, but to help him keep perspective. My disappearance—and the loss of Az—is not going to go down easily, and Viren will probably try to use them to manipulate Harrow. Worst case, he baits the king into going to war.”

“Would he risk that without the egg?”

“Viren doesn’t fully understand _risk_ as a concept anymore,” said Callum grimly. “Even this early, Dark Magic was taking its toll. He’s been playing with the Old Magic, too. I wouldn’t be surprised if a Spell lodged itself in his brain before too long. He’s losing his mind, and he’s going to burn down the world in a fit if we’re not careful.”

“Then shouldn’t we, I don’t know, _do_ something?”

“What, kill him?”

“Yes!”

“Bad idea,” said Callum. “You saw what happened when he died.”

Rayla had. It had not been pretty. The explosion had leveled half the battlefield. Only a quick use of magic had gotten Callum away mostly unscathed after dealing the killing blow. “Yeah. What was that?”

“Old Magic,” said Callum grimly. “The Spells embed themselves in a mage’s brain. If the mage dies without casting them, they don’t have anywhere to go. So they cast themselves, all at once. I don’t know how many Spells Viren already knows, and I don’t want to find out.”

“Are you sure he knows _any_ , this early on?”

Callum nodded. “Blank scrolls on his table,” he said. “The Spells had already been learned.”

She grimaced. “Then what do we do?”

“We go through with the plan,” he said. “We take Zym to Xadia. We hatch him at the first opportunity. We play it by ear, a little. We hope that Harrow and Ez can keep things in check here for at least a little while. Viren won’t be as dangerous if Harrow’s still alive.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“No,” he admitted. “But I’m not sure of much. Still—if I had to pick a place to find allies, if it comes to war, I’d rather pick the place where _no one_ uses Dark Magic and there are more mages than any of the human kingdoms.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to war.”

“Yeah,” Callum agreed, looking down. “Let’s hope.”

She glanced over at him, saw the frown on his face. She reached out and took his hand. “Yeah,” she admitted. “I don’t buy it either.”

He chuckled. “I just hope Ezran and Harrow survive this time,” he said quietly. “I don’t know if…”

“I know.” She put an arm around his shoulders. He did the same, and for a time they held each other.

“Tonight it all starts again,” Callum said.

“Why wait?” asked Rayla, before pulling him down for another kiss.

* * *

 

**From the Desk of Archmage Iliir:**

_On spells, Spells, and the Old Magic_

_Recent writings in the field of thaumology—the Xadian term for the study of magic, for human readers—tends to discuss magic as if tapping into the six primal sources is all there is to magic, and always has been. Aside, of course, from human Dark Magic. ‘Recent’ here mostly means anything written in the last eight hundred years. This notion could not be more wrong._

_The modern spells—aspero, fulminus, and the like—are incredibly powerful and versatile. They use the fact that the Draconic language is fundamentally magical, and emerged fully-formed among the first dragons. In combination with a source of primal energy, such as a Primal Stone or a runic staff or rod, this allows the speaker of a spell to tap into primal magic directly, allowing it to do what it naturally does, but at the direction of a spellcaster._

_However, among certain spheres of educated and inducted magi, references are occasionally made to the ‘Old Magic.’ This Magic, properly called Sapiothaumy, is entirely unlike modern spellcasting—and is far older and more powerful._

_The Old Magic is comprised of Spells, with a capital S. Spells, like spells, are cast by a mage, and generally involve either a focus, like those used by primal mages, or components, like those used by dark mages. They generally involve a somatic component, like the primal gestures of spells, and/or a command word. These words are not in draconic. In fact, Sapiothaumy **predates** dragonkind._

_None of these are the fundamental difference between modern magic and the Old Magic, however. The core difference, from the perspective of a spellcaster, is in a mechanism of which all Old Magic users must remain aware. This mechanism is formally called Thaumic Primality, but in common diction it is often referred to as “fire-and-forget.”_

_A Spell can only exist in one place at a time. A thousand modern mages may know how to cast a basic fireball, with the draconic command-word ‘pyrus,’ but there is only one mage at any time who could know any given Fireball. There might be multiple Fireballs, each subtly different, but each one could only be in one place at a time—whether that place was on a page, in a mage’s brain, or in the air, exploding._

_There are other differences between Spells and spells, but those fall outside the necessary scope for cursory study. If one is considering learning the Old Magic, more research is recommended. In short, if the reader does not know why the Old Magic is called ‘Sapiothaumy,’ the reader is not advised to dabble in the field._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't get used to this update speed, there's absolutely no way it continues.

No matter how good Viren’s defenses were, they weren’t built to keep back a primal archmage and a fully-trained Moonshadow Elf assassin, both of whom already knew their way into the vault.

That wasn’t to say there was no challenge in retrieving the egg. They could have done it easily, but doing so unseen, before sunset—that wasn’t so easy.

“We need to make sure Viren and Claudia are both out of the vaults,” Callum said, stooped over a blueprint of the castle. Rayla watched him from her perch on the edge of his bed. “As long as they’re both occupied outside, one of us can just walk in and take Zym.”

“I could make a distraction,” Rayla offered. “A Moonshadow Elf in the castle would have the whole place in uproar.”

“We can’t afford to let them see you.” Callum shook his head. “I’m disappearing tonight, remember? We can’t let there be _any_ ties to Xadia. Not if we want to have any chance of keeping the peace long enough to stop Viren and the dark elves.”

“Don’t you think they’ll suspect Xadia anyway?” Rayla asked. “Viren’s been lookin’ for an excuse to go to war with them for years, hasn’t he?”

“Definitely,” Callum nodded. “That’s why it’s so important we not _give_ them a reason. If we give Katolis anything they can call “proof” of Xadia’s involvement, there’ll be no stopping them. So long as they have to make an investigation first, we have a little time.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Rayla acknowledged reluctantly. “So—what do I do?”

“You’re going to need to be the one who infiltrates the vault,” Callum said. “I’ll make the distraction. Once I do, as soon as I have confirmation that Viren and Claudia are both occupied, I’ll let you know.”

“How?” Rayla asked. “How will you get a signal to me if you’re busy settin’ up…” She trailed off. Callum’s shoulder’s were tense, and he wasn’t looking at her. “No,” she said flatly.

“It’s our best shot,” he said.

“It’s _dangerous_. I won’t have you puttin’ yourself at risk.” There was no spell for telepathy or any other mental communication. None had been discovered. As far as anyone knew, only Old Magic could do that/

“It’s not as though I’ve never used Old Magic before, Rayla.”

That was true, not that it made her any happier. “And you’ve gotten lucky so far,” she said. “What happens when your luck runs out? What happens when you miss part of a Spell, and it traps itself in your head?”

“Then I’ll need to take a few days to relearn the Spell properly and extract it,” he said with a shrug. “It’ll be _okay_ , Rayla.”

“I don’t like it.”

He glanced back and smiled at her. “Noted,” he said. “But I’ve learned Message and other communication Spells before. It’ll be fine.”

“Do you even have a copy of a Message in the castle?”

Callum grimaced. “ _That_ I’ll need to check. It’d be in the lower library, Viren’s section.”

“Are you even goin’ to be able to get there without arousin’ suspicion?”

He didn’t answer for a moment. “Probably,” he said.

“I don’t like _probably_ , Callum.”

He turned, sat against his desk, a faced her fully, a thoughtful frown on his face. “Okay,” he said. “Maybe I’m thinking about this the wrong way. What do you think we should do?”

She brushed her bangs away from her face. “We need to make sure Claudia and Viren are out of the vault before I go in,” she said. “Surely there’s a way for you to signal me without magic? Or at least without _Old_ Magic?”

He bit his lip. “It’ll be less reliable,” he warned. “But… probably, yeah.” He stood up and turned back to the map, humming thoughtfully, his fingers drumming against his leg. “It’d be easier if the vault had windows,” he said thoughtfully.

Suddenly, a thought occurred to Rayla. “Callum, do you remember the combination? To get through the wall?”

There was a pause. “No,” Callum said grimly. “No, I don’t.”

“Then what do we do? Ezran should know the combination…”

“We can’t involve Ezran if there’s an alternative. That just puts him in danger.”

“Then what are we supposed to do?”

Callum sighed. “I don’t know. We could wait for Viren to go into the vault and try to catch a glimpse of the combination, but that corridor is cramped. It’d be hard to do that and stay hidden.”

Rayla chewed her tongue for a moment before clearing her throat. “Callum… I think we have to talk to Ezran. Think about it—there are only three people who know the combination, as far as we know, and we don’t have a way to find it without them seeing us.”

“Not without Old Magic, anyway.”

“We don’t even know what Spells are in Viren’s library,” Rayla protested. “And you might get caught snoopin’ around down there. It’s riskier to do that.”

“You’re right,” Callum sighed. “I hate putting Ezran at risk, but you’re right.”

“He’s smart. He can take care of himself.”

“He’s a kid, he shouldn’t have to,” muttered Callum. “Whatever happens, I need to be the one who talks to him. He shouldn’t know about you if we can avoid it. Better if Viren and Harrow think it’s just me than realizing there was a Moonshadow Elf involved.”

“Then you do that,” said Rayla. “Get the egg and get out. I’ll be outside, watching Viren and Claudia. If I see either of them headed your way, I’ll try to get to you first.”

“ _Don’t_ be seen,” he warned.

“Better I be seen than you get caught,” she said. “It’ll be alright, Callum.”

He bit his lip, looking back at her. “I hope so, Rayla,” he said. “I can’t… I can’t lose him again. Or you.”

“You won’t,” she said, hoping she sounded more confident than she felt. “I’m not goin’ anywhere. Nor is he.”

He smiled slightly. “I hope you’re right.” He glanced up at the clock. “Ezran should be back from his lessons soon. You’d better hide.”

Rayla looked around. “Where?” she asked. “In the closet?”

Callum grinned. “Under the bed?” he suggested. “It _is_ your turn.”

She flushed. “That was not my fault.”

“Riiiiight.”

“The closet is much better.”

“I always leave my closet open.” Callum nodded at the closet which, yes, was open. “Ez would notice.”

“Would I even fit?”

“I do. You’re not much bigger than I am, even now.”

She grimaced. “Fine,” she snapped. “But _no jumpin’_.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” said Callum, his grin practically splitting him face from ear to ear.

_With any luck,_ Rayla groused as she crept into the space between the bed frame and the tile floor, _he’ll shut up about it now._

Once, while staying in the Xadian capitol of Thrence, Callum had nearly been caught in Rayla’s room. It had been perfectly innocent—they’d still been dancing around each other then—but Archmage Iliir’s servants would likely not have seen it that way.

Callum had escaped capture by hiding under her bed. The space had been too narrow for him—and when the maidservant had sat on the bed beside Rayla to talk to her, she had nearly crushed the poor young man beneath her.

Callum had never let her forget the incident. Perhaps now that she’d had _her turn_ he would.

The door opened. “Hey Ez,” said Callum from the desk, where he had returned to drawing.

“Callum,” Ezran said, his voice still as young and gentle as Rayla remembered. Just hearing it made her want to burst from hiding and scoop the boy into her arms—but she held herself back. “Soren was looking for you. He said you missed swordplay training.”

“Oh, drat,” Callum said, audibly dismayed. “Of _course_ I had swordplay today. I completely forgot to check my calendar.”

“He was in the courtyard last I saw,” Ezran said. “You could probably go find him.”

“I… yeah. In a bit.”

“Callum, I know you don’t like swordfighting, but—”

“No, it’s not about that. Ez, I need to talk to you.” Callum seemed to hesitate for a moment. “Can you… shut the door?”

There was a pause, then a creak and a faint thud as the door shut. “Callum, what’s going on?” Ezran asked, concern in every pitch of his voice. “You seem… nervous.”

“That’s because I am,” Callum admitted. “Ez, I have a favor to ask.”

“…Uh, okay. What do you—” He cut himself off suddenly.

There was a growling sound beside Rayla’s head. She froze.

“Bait?” Ezran asked. “Did you find—”

“No—” Callum started, but it was too late.

In the silence that followed, Rayla turned her head and met Ezran’s blue eyes. Beside him, Bait glowered at her, glowing an angry red.

“Um.” Ezran blinked at her.

She grinned weakly at him. “Hi, Ezran,” she said.

In the silence that followed, she heard the familiar sound of Callum’s palm meeting his brow. “Well, there goes that plan,” he mumbled. “Rayla, you might as well come out.”

She did. “I told you we shoulda gone with the closet,” she told him.

“Um. Callum?” Ezran said, his voice shaking slightly. “Why is there an elf under your bed?”

Callum looked despairingly between her and Ezran for a moment before sighing. “Ez, meet Rayla,” he said—and wasn’t that odd? Being _introduced_ to Ezran, as if they hadn’t spent most of the past year traveling together. “Rayla, Prince Ezran of Katolis. Ez, Rayla’s… a friend.”

“You’re friends with an elf?”

“Yes,” said Callum flatly. Ez, the less you know, the better. There’s a lot going on, and most of it is dangerous. It’s safer if you know as little as possible. That’s why we wanted to keep you from knowing about Rayla.”

“Shoulda known better, though,” Rayla said, sitting down on the bed and putting her legs up, watching Ezran carefully for any sign of bolting. “Bait was bound to see me under the bed.”

“Yeah, that… was my bad,” Callum admitted. “Anyway. Ezran, I’d appreciate it if you can ask as few questions as possible.”

“I think I deserve a _little_ explanation,” Ezran said in a reproachful wheedle.

“You do,” Rayla said. “You deserve more than a little. This isn’t _fair_ , Ezran, and no one knows than better than us. But it is what it is.”

“Short version,” Callum said. “Ez, I know you’ve been exploring a secret passage behind the portrait in Viren’s study.”

Ezran’s eyes widened as he stared at his brother. “How do you—”

“Can’t explain,” Callum said. “Again—the _less you know_ , the safer you are. But—Rayla and I know what’s behind the wall. You’re still trying to get through there, right?”

“…Yeah.”

“Well, Rayla and I need to get back there. There’s something in there. It doesn’t belong to Viren, and we need to get it away from him.”

Ezran swallowed. “You’re talking about… _stealing_ from _Lord Viren_.”

“Yes,” said Rayla. “And—Ezran, we _need_ your help. It has to be done today, before nightfall.”

“Why?” Ezran asked, staring between them, shaking slightly. “What’s happening, Callum?”

“I wish I could tell you,” Callum said gently. “Ez, this is all… _really_ dangerous.”

“More dangerous than me telling Dad that there’s an elf in your room?” Ezran asked sharply. “Callum, _tell me what’s going on._ You’re scaring me.”

Rayla glanced back at Callum. He was chewing on his lip, visibly casting about for something to see.

She sighed. What was it she’d said, just after the first time she kissed him?

_Sometimes, Callum, you can’t keep lookin’ for the perfect thing to say. You just have to say_ somethin’ _._

She swung her legs over the side of the bed and knelt so that her head was at Ezran’s level. “All right,” she said. “Ezran—Callum and I came from the future.”

Ezran blinked at her. “…Excuse me?”

“I know you can talk to animals,” she said quickly. “I know that’s why you’re such good friends with Bait. I know Callum doesn’t— _didn’t_ —believe you, because the last time you tried to prove it, a bunch of racoons lied to you. He believes you now, because you proved it again—about a _week from now_.”

Ezran stared at her, his eyes wide, his pupils dilated.

“Now, things are about to get _really, really bad_ ,” said Rayla quietly. “And at the core of it all is the dragon egg in Viren’s vault. Four moons ago, he and your father invaded Xadia and killed the king of the dragons. The elves all thought they destroyed his only egg, but Viren recovered it. He’s plannin’ to use it in a ritual, and we have to stop him.”

Ezran’s eyes were darting from her face, to Callum’s behind her, and back again. “I think I’m falling behind,” he said weakly.

She put a hand on his shoulder. “I know it’s a lot to take in,” she said gently. “But—look. Xadia and the human kingdoms are on the brink of war. If that war really starts—not the cold war of the past thousand years, but _real_ , bloody war, with Spells to destroy cities gettin’ thrown around like candy— _no one wins_. Callum and I saw that. We want to prevent that. And to do it, we need to get that egg away from Viren before tonight.”

“And then what?” Ezran asked, his voice shaking. “Say everything you say is true. Say Lord Viren really does have the dragon prince. Say you get it away from him. What are you going to do with it?”

“We’re going to take it to Xadia,” said Callum. “With luck, having a human prince return the egg will be enough to cool heads. Hopefully we’ll be able to negotiate a cease fire or something.”

“…So you’re going,” Ezran said lowly. “You’re running away to go to Xadia.”

There was a pause. Rayla looked back at Callum, who was biting his lip. “I don’t want to leave,” he said. “But—someone has to do this. The egg belongs with its mother. She’s waiting for it, she wants her son back. Lord Viren and King Harrow took her son away. They had reason to, maybe, but that doesn’t make it right.”

Ezran swallowed. “No. It doesn’t.” He stepped away from Rayla, watching her warily. “How did you get here, anyway?” he asked. “What are you doing in Katolis?”

“That’s a long story,” Rayla hedged.

“Tell me,” Ezran demanded, and for a moment a shadow passed over his face, and she could almost see the boy king, the ruler who had led Katolis in the last days of the kingdom. “You want my help—tell me what I’m helping with.”

She swallowed. “Callum and I… arrived in the past last night,” she said. “I was already in Katolis.”

“Why?”

“…I was with a group of my people. We were on a mission.”

“What was your mission?” Ezran asked, and his voice was cold. Rayla had heard that tone out of him a few times, during the war, but she’d never grown used to it.

“…We were sent to assassinate two people,” she said quietly. “In vengeance for the death of the Dragon King and his only son… we were sent to kill the king of Katolis, and _his_ only son.”

Ezran’s face paled. “…Me.”

“Yes. Callum and I convinced Runaan—my mission leader—that if we brought him the egg and helped him take it back to Xadia, he’d abandon the original mission. That’s why we have to do this by sundown, Ezran—tonight’s the full moon. If we don’t succeed, Runaan will strike. He’ll kill your father, and he’ll kill you.”

“He’ll _try_ ,” Callum corrected darkly.

“Right,” Rayla agreed. “And we’ll try to stop him. But, honestly, I’m not sure how that fight would go. Better to avoid it entirely.” She studied Ezran’s pale face for a moment. “Ezran, we need your help. Please.”

He swallowed. “Okay. Come on, let’s go to the passage.”

“I’ll stay here,” Rayla said, standing up. “I don’t know if I can sneak around the castle unseen in broad daylight, and we want to have as few connections between Callum and the egg disappearin’ and Xadia as possible.”

Ezran looked up at her blankly. “Why? What does it matter if people know Callum’s taking it to Xadia?”

“Apart from the fact that then they’d know where to look for him to bring him back?” Rayla asked rhetorically. “Viren wants war with Xadia. We don’t want to give him a reason to start one.”

“Why would he want war?”

Callum cleared his throat. “That’s a long explanation,” he said. “The short version is just ‘Dark Magic.’ Ez, can we talk more on the way? I’d like to get this done as soon as possible.”

Ezran nodded. “Okay.” He swallowed, his nerves showing again. “All right. Follow me.”

He strode out of the room, Bait at his heels. As Callum passed her, his hand reached out and brushed her arm. His eyes met hers. “Be right back,” he whispered.

“I’ll be here,” she replied, and then he was gone.

* * *

Rayla darted under the bed as the door opened. Not a moment too soon—the heavy boots on clicking on the stone floor couldn’t possibly be Callum’s.

“Hmmm,” came Soren’s familiar voice. “Not here, either. Where is that step-prince?”

Rayla held her breath. _Don’t look under the bed, don’t look under the bed. Oh, I knew I shoulda hid in the closet!_

 But Soren did not look under the bed. Instead, he crossed to Callum’s desk. As he reached it he let out a noise of surprise. “Huh. Is that an elf? Not bad, step-prince. She’s pretty. Wonder why he drew it?”

Rayla swallowed down the warmth in her stomach. _Not the time,_ she told herself.

“Hm. Well, he’s not here.” Soren turned and knocked on Ezran’s door. “Ezran, you in there?” There was, of course, no answer, so after a moment Soren opened the door. “Hm. Nothing here, either.” Then he returned to Callum’s desk and opened the window behind it. “He’s not here!” he called down.

“Any sign of my Primal Stone?” came Claudia’s voice from the courtyard below.

“No, nothing. You sure you didn’t just lose it?”

“Yes, I’m sure! I hope Callum didn’t take it. It’s dangerous!”

“We’d know—he’d drop it! He’s too clumsy not to!” Soren shut the window on Claudia’s protests, turned, and sighed. “Well, if he’s not here, then… maybe down in the library? Claudia might’ve missed him. Yeah, let’s go check.”

He stomped off, his armor clattering with every stem, and shut the door behind him. At last, Rayla allowed herself to breath.

If they were looking for Callum already, that made things more difficult… but not unmanageable. It did mean she had to be careful to leave as few traces as possible, though.

* * *

 

Callum and Ezran returned not long after Soren had left. As soon as she heard Bait’s stubby feet padding on the tiles, she rolled out from under the bed and stood up. “Soren and Claudia are out lookin’ for you,” she said as soon as Callum had shut the door. “They didn’t see you, did they?”

“I saw Claudia in the courtyard, but she didn’t see me.” He unslung his pack from his shoulder and gingerly reached into it. “We got it,” he said quietly, and from the leather pouch emerged the shimmering crystalline orb of Azymondias’ egg. It had been almost a year, but Rayla recognized it the moment she saw it; blue, flecked with red, yellow, and all the other colors of the rainbow, faintly pulsing with light.

“So that’s it then,” Ezran said, and his voice was faintly choked. “Now you’ve got it. You can leave.”

“Oh, Ez,” Callum said, dropping the egg back into his pack, sinking to his knees, and clasping his brother’s shoulders. “I don’t want to leave. You know—last time, in the future Rayla and I came from? You came with us when we left. I’m going to miss you.”

“I could come with you,” said Ezran, desperation making his voice pitch up half an octave. “I did it before, I can do it again. You could take me along!”

“We need you here,” Callum said. “King Harrow— _Dad_ —is going to need you here. We need you to make sure Viren doesn’t make him do anything too stupid.”

“How am I supposed to do that?” Ezran asked, wild-eyed. “I’m just a kid!”

“You’re the crown prince, you can talk to animals, and you’re one of the best people I’ve ever met,” Rayla said. “I’m sure you’ll come up with something.”

He looked at her, and his eyes were hard. It was almost a glare. Maybe it was as close to a glare as Ezran could come, now, before Harrow’s death, before the fall of Katolis, before everything went wrong. “I don’t know you,” he told her. “I don’t like this. You just popped up and suddenly you’re taking Callum away to Xadia.”

“I’m sorry, Ez,” Callum said. “I have to do this.”

“I know,” Ezran sighed. “I even understand why. But I don’t like it.” He embraced Callum, his arms tight around his half-brother. “I’m going to miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too, bud.”

Rayla swallowed and turned away. She couldn’t help but feel she was intruding. This wasn’t _her_ Ezran, after all—not the boy she’d watched age ten years in the space of one and become the king his people needed. Not the boy whose eyes she’d watched blacken with the influence of Dark Magic.

Her Ezran was dead, and she was watching Callum part ways with someone who might as well be a stranger to her.

They separated at last. “How long do you think you’ll be gone?” Ezran asked, sniffling slightly. “Will I… ever see you again?”

“Definitely,” Callum said firmly. “With luck, I’ll be back in a couple months. I don’t plan to stay in Xadia for that long. We’ll see each other again before too long, don’t worry.”

Ezran swallowed. “Okay.” He looked over at Rayla. “I won’t tell them about you,” he promised. “I’ll tell them I don’t know where Callum is, or what he’s doing.”

“Thank you, Ezran,” she said, her voice low.

Callum squeezed his brother’s shoulders once more. “Take care of yourself, okay?”

“I will. You too.”

“I will.” Then he stood up and turned to her. “What’s the plan now?”

“Sundown’s just a couple hours away,” she said. “We have to get outside the castle, as soon as we can, without bein’ seen. You know the place better than I do—how do we do that?”

“You could use the crawlspace to get to the kitchens,” Ezran suggested. “The servants’ gate is right there. You could come around to the front gate from the outside.”

Rayla raised an eyebrow. “Not a bad idea,” she said, her voice warm with appreciation. “Can you take us to the crawlspace?”

“Sure,” Ezran said with a nod, but he didn’t smile. It was odd to see his face so empty.

It broke Rayla’s heart—but there was too much to do in Xadia for her and Callum to stay, and it was too dangerous to leave Harrow alone with Viren. So as much as she wanted to tell him he could come with them, or to tell Callum to stay with his brother and that she could handle Xadia alone, all she said was, “Thank you, Ezran.”

Ezran led them out of the room, down a deserted corridor—Rayla hung back, always within a quick sprint of cover, should someone happen by—and then into a dingy little room that might have been a closet. At floor level was a small vent, which Ezran knelt by and pulled aside to reveal a tunnel.

“You can follow this to the kitchens,” he said. “Just go left first, then right at the next fork, then down the slope, and then left at the fork. Got it?”

“Got it,” Callum confirmed. “How did you find all these tunnels, anyway?”

“Animals,” Ezran shrugged. “How do you think rats get everywhere? These vents connect most of the castle to the courtyards, to keep fresh air flowing. At least, I _think_ it’s for fresh air. Maybe they were also originally a secret passage, I don’t know.”

“None of them lead outside the castle?” Rayla asked.

Ezran looked at her like she was stupid. “We like our castles _not_ captured, here in Katolis,” he said.

“Oh. Uh, good point. We don’t have a lot of castles in Xadia.”

“Cool.” Ezran’s voice was cold, dismissive. It was a side of him she’d only very rarely seen, and it hurt to be on the receiving end. “Once you’re at the kitchens, it’s a straight shot across a little courtyard to the servants’ entrance, but the servants will probably be making dinner, so there’ll be people.”

“Got it,” said Callum. “We’ll be careful.” He glanced at Rayla. “I can use Invisus, but it’ll only cover me.”

“I don’t need a spell to be stealthy,” Rayla assured him. “We’ll be fine.”

Callum nodded. “Okay.” He turned back to Ezran, and his eyes were soft as a bed of tall Xadian grasses. “Ez, thank you. We couldn’t have done this without you. I’m really going to miss you.”

Ezran didn’t look at him for a moment. “Do you have to go?” he asked, and his voice was choked. “Can’t _she_ go to Xadia, and you stay here with me?”

“Rayla needs me there,” Callum said gently. “She’s not a mage, there are things she can’t do alone.”

“ _I_ need you here!” exclaimed Ezran, his voice high. “I can’t lose you, Callum—not like we lost…” He trailed off, looking down at the ground. Rayla realized, hearing his sniffling, that he was crying.

“I can’t lose you either,” said Callum gently, kneeling and embracing his brother. “That’s why I can’t take you to Xadia. I _want_ to, Ez—but last time you _died_ in Xadia. I can’t deal with that again.”

“I won’t die,” Ezran mumbled.

“You’ll be safer here,” Callum said. “And I’ll come back just as soon as I’ve made the world a little safer than it is right now. I promise.”

Ezran threw his arms around his brother, squezzing tight. “I’ll hold you to that,” he said, voice choked. “You’d _better_ come back, Callum.”

“I will, I promise. I’ll be back before you know it.”

Slwoly, they let each other go.Ezran looked at Callum, then at Rayla. “I don’t know you,” he said, and his brow was furrowed in something like anger. “I don’t know anything about you. But you’d better take care of him.”

“I will,” she said immediately. “I promise.” And _that_ was an oath she’d be happy to bind herself to.

“You’d better,” said Ezran grimly. “Because I’m going to be king of Katolis eventually, and I’ll _remember_. I’ll remember the Moonshadow Elf who got my brother killed.”

“Ez—” Callum started, but Rayla was nodding.

“If Callum dies on my watch, I swear on the moon, I will surrender my life to you,” she said. “I’ll remember, too, Ezran. If anyone wants to get to Callum, they’ll have to get through me first.”

Ezran nodded once, briskly. “Good.” He glanced back at Callum, but his eyes darted away, as though he couldn’t bear to stretch the goodbye any longer. “You’d better get going,” he said. “The later it gets, the more cooks will be in the kitchen when you arrive.”

“All right,” Callum said, his eyes bright. “I’m going to miss you, Ez.”

Ez smiled sadly up at him. “I’ll miss you too, Callum. I’ll see you later.”

He turned and walked out of the room, shutting the door gently behind him. If Rayla heard him break into a run as soon as he was outside of the closet, she didn’t say anything about it to Callum. Instead, she just turned and gave the elder brother a sad little smile. “Well? Shall we?”

Callum nodded, glancing down at the vent. “It’s going to be a little cramped,” he said. “You go first; I’ll shut it behind us.”

* * *

 

Ezran was quite right about the servants’ quarter of the castle—it was _packed_. But it was packed with servants, busy ones. None of them were paying any attention to anything but their work. Slipping by them was barely a challenge, so immersed were they in their routine.

Callum left her with a whispered _Invisus_ just as they left the vent, and she was left to creep across the courtyard alone.

After a near miss with a guard watching the gate, she did so, and sat down in the shade of a bush just outside the walls to catch her breath. She took the opportunity to sip at her bottle of moonberry juice.

“Mind if I have some?” came Callum’s voice in her ear.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “You startled me! You’re still invisible, you know.”

“Yeah. No sense dropping the spell before I need to. But, yeah—can I have a sip? I kiiiinda skipped lunch today.”

“Oh, so you did.” He’d been with her all day, after all. She held out the vial and watched as it was taken from her grasp, vanishing as soon as it was out of her fingers.

There was the sound of the cork being pulled, and after a moment, a faint, refreshed sigh. “Thanks,” Callum said. The bottle nudged against her knuckes until she got her fingers around it.

“I’ve always wondered,” she said. “Can you see yourself when you’re invisible?”

“Yeah,” Callum said. “Can you imagine—I’m clumsy enough already! I’d have knocked over every plate in the entire kitchen on the way out.”

She chuckled. “That you would have,” she agreed. Then she craned her neck, trying to peer around the bush which blocked her from the view of the battlements. “Is the guard gone? Can you see?”

“He’s looking right now,” said Callum. “I’ll tell you when he looks away, and you make a sprint for that corner.”

Rayla turned and saw what he was talking about. The wall turned sharply away, following the border of the castle grounds. Once she was behind that turret, she’d be out of site from the gate.

“Okay,” she said. “You give the word.”

There was silence for a time. It stretched, ten seconds… thirty seconds… a minute…

“He’s walking the other way.” Callum said. “Go!”

Rayla did. She darted out from behind cover and sprinted for the turret. It took her less than two seconds to cross the distance and get behind it.

It took Callum a little longer, but soon she heard his panting at her ear again. “I always forget,” he gasped, “how fast you are.”

She grinned. “Maybe you’ll remember this time. Now… we just follow this wall to the main gate?”

“We should stay away from the main gate itself,” said Callum. “Too much traffic. Come on, let’s get to the forest just outside the gates. Runaan won’t miss us there.”

And, as it happened, he didn’t.

Callum’s invisibility spell had long since dropped when Runaan and the others dropped out of the trees around them. Callum started, but Rayla had heard the elves approaching, and calmly met Runaan’s eyes.

“We’re here,” she said. “As promised.”

“So you are,” said Runaan, his brow furrowed and his lips downturned. “And the egg?”

Callum looked at her. She gave him a nod, so he unslung his pack and reached in.

The elves all gasped when he produced Azymondias’ egg. “Here it is,” he said. “One Dragon Prince, like-new condition.”

Runaan stared at the egg for a moment. Then he tore his eyes from it down to the boy holding it. “I am still not certain I believe that you are… from the future,” he said. “It seems too farfetched.”

Callum nodded. “I know,” he agreed. “I don’t understand how it happened, and that bothers me. I’m a mage—I’m an _archmage_. I’m supposed to know this stuff. But I’ve got no idea. So I don’t blame you for not believing. I wouldn’t either.”

“Still.” Runaan sighed. “You have returned the Dragon Prince to us, and I will not break our end of the bargain. King Harrow and his son will live for now. I can make no promises than another group will not be dispatched later, however.”

“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,” said Callum, standing up. “So? Are we going to Xadia now?”

There was a pause.

“Why do you _want_ to go to Xadia, young prince?” Runaan asked. “Simple curiosity, or something else?”

“I told you, I’m from the future,” said Callum. “I learned everything I know about magic in Xadia—well, almost everything. I want to go back, see the archmage who taught me again.”

Runaan’s lips quirked. “I almost believe you,” he said. “Enough to humor you, at any rate. Why _did_ you go to Xadia, then—the first time?”

Callum glanced over at Rayla. “We didn’t have much of a choice, that time,” he said. “ _Someone_ had to take the egg back to Xadia—and you and all the other elves were captured or killed by Viren after killing King Harrow. It was just me, Rayla, and—” he stopped. “And the egg.”

Rayla blinked. _Oh, are we keepin’ Ezran’s involvement secret?_ She filed that away along with all the other secrets she and Callum were keeping.

“I see.” Runaan sighed. “Well. A promise made is a promise kept. Come along. We travel by night—and I expect to cover a great distance, this full moon.”

“I’ll… try to keep up?”

Rayla grinned at him. “Do you need me to carry you, Callum?”

“Please don’t,” Callum muttered.

“We can talk on the road,” said Runaan brusquely. “Come. Let us go.”

And, without another word, Callum and Rayla were on the road to Xadia again.

* * *

 

**From the Desk of Archmage Iliir:**

_Magi, Archmagi, and the College Arcanum_

_In the seven human kingdoms west of the Breach, magic is generally studied in an informal manner. One experienced mage may take one student, or several. He may teach them all he knows, or only a few simple spells. There is no standardized curriculum for the nurturing of magical talent._

_To elven readers, this may seem barbaric and backwards. Consider that, west of the Breach, magic is such a rarity, such an oddity, that only one man in a hundred may even possess magical talent. Consider that humans have no access to fonts of magic such as can be found anywhere in Xadia with little struggle. It is no surprise, then, that there is simply no reliable reason to produce an infrastructure for educating students of magic._

_However, here in Xadia, things are different, and the human reader may be curious as to how. To them I shall answer._

_In the seven kingdoms, there is only one word for a magic-user: Mage. This word covers anyone from the lowest purveyor of party tricks to the highest conjurer in the land. They may have separate titles of honor or prestige from their local kingdom, but they are all mages before any of that, and it is as mages—or, more properly, magi—that they see one another._

_In Xadia, ‘mage’ refers to all those who use magic, but who, for whatever reason, are not recognized members of the College Arcanum. To call a magic-user who is so recognized a ‘mage’ is a grave insult, tantamount to calling a human noble “my good fellow” without being familiar enough with him to warrant such disrespect._

_The College Arcanum is an organization which accredits the teachings and pupils of proficient magic-users. These spellcasters are, in Xadia, known as archmagi._

_I am one such archmage. What this means, in effect, is that I report directly to the College Arcanum for periodic reviews of the curriculum which I teach my students—even if I have not taken a student in over a hundred years, as is currently the case. So long as that curriculum is to the satisfaction of the College, I retain the title of archmage._

_When I, or any other archmage, takes a student, we then teach them according to that curriculum. Once they have learned the material in that curriculum to our satisfaction, we may petition the College Arcanum to hold an examination for them. If they pass, they are themselves given the title of archmage, and are thus allowed to teach students of their own, according to the structure of the College._

_There is an additional ‘class’, as it were, or magic-users in Xadia, called sorcerers. However, they, and the Sorcerer’s Conclave of which they are the members, are outside the scope of this text._


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I dunno, I like this concept. Probably gonna run out of inspiration soon. Still nominally focused on Ring-Maker

Soren was standing at the door when Harrow left his bedroom. “Your Majesty,” the young knight said with a bow.

“Soren,” Harrow greeted, yawning. “What brings you here so early?”

“…It’s almost eleven, milord.”

“Right. Early.”

Soren coughed. “I was wondering if everything’s all right with Prince Callum,” he said. “He didn’t show up to his swordplay lesson yesterday.”

“Didn’t he?” Harrow frowned. “I don’t know why. Come to think of it, I didn’t see him yesterday after breakfast. I’d assumed he was with you, or in the library.”

“I didn’t see him,” said Soren, shaking his head. “Nor did Claudia. We checked the library and his room a few times.”

Harrow frowned. “That is odd. Come, let’s go check his room. At the very least, Ezran should know where he’s been.”

The boys lived an unfortunate distance from his bedroom in the high tower. It had once been a safety measure—an assassin seeking to kill both him and his children would have to divide their efforts, giving one party time to escape while the first distracted the attacker.

Privately, Harrow didn’t think much of any security that required his children either to die or be orphaned. But the efforts to add quarters for Ezran and Callum to his tower were still ongoing.

Harrow led Soren, along with his entourage of guards, down the stairs and across the catwalk to the keep, then down the corridor towards Callum and Ezran’s rooms. He knocked gently on the door, leaning in towards it to listen. “Callum?” he called. “Are you in there?”

Silence. Frowning, Harrow opened the door.

Callum’s bed was made. His books were neatly organized on his desk. His papers were all either neatly stacked or rolled into scrolls and stowed beneath his desk.

Callum’s room had _never_ been this neat.

Harrow glanced at the open door to Ezran’s adjoining room. His biological son’s feet were visible on the bed through the doorway. “Ezran?” he called.

“Hey, Dad.”

The voice only deepened Harrow’s frown. Ezran’s voice was rough and thick with exhaustion and dehydration. He sounded as if he hadn’t slept or drank anything all night.

Harrow crossed the room and ducked his head into Ezran’s chambers. Ezran was lying on his back in his four-poster bed, staring up at the canopy. Bait was curled into his side, faintly glowing a sad blue color.

All of this, Harrow registered only after he’d run across the room to his son’s side. He had only seen two things first. Ezran’s eyes were red, and his face was stained with tear tracks.

“Ezran, what’s wrong?” he asked, his voice sharp with concern. “Are you all right? What’s happened?”

Ezran’s face shuddered, scrunching up as though to hold back another flood of tears. “I’m… I’m—” he let out a choked sob but then seemed to collect himself. “I’ll be okay.”

“What happened?”

Ezran swallowed. “Callum,” he mumbled, squeezing his eyes shut. “He’s gone.”

“Gone?” Harrow’s voice rose in pitch until it was almost a squeak. “What do you mean, _gone_?”

“He left. He’s left the castle.”

Harrow stumbled back, eyes wide, staring at his son. “What? Callum—what? But… but _why_?”

Ezran scrunched his face up. He bit his lip, then his tongue. When he said, “I don’t know,” it came out breathless, like he could barely force the words out.

Harrow didn’t need to see the way Bait’s color flickered momentarily orange to know something was amiss. “Ezran,” he said gently. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Ezran put his hands over his face. “He _knows_ I can’t lie,” he mumbled. “Why, Callum?”

“What happened?” Harrow demanded, his patience wearing thin. “What happened to—”

“He found the dragon egg!” Ezran exploded, sitting up and glaring at him. “He found out that you and Viren had _stolen_ the dragon prince from its mother and were hiding it in a cellar somewhere! So he took it, and he’s taking it—taking it away!”

Harrow didn’t notice the way Ezran stumbled on the end of the sentence. He didn’t notice how Ezran’s gaze broke from his. If he had, he might have observed the lie. But he was far too focused on the parts that _weren’t_ lies. “The—the dragon prince?” he asked, staring at his son. “What are you talking about?”

But he knew, even before Ezran’s eyes widened and he asked, “Wait, you didn’t know?” He wasn’t stupid. He could put the pieces together.

 _Dark Magic,_ Viren had once told him, during one of those insufferable lectures of their youth, _draws its power from the innate magic of magical living things. Its components are fragments of magical creatures, and its power comes by drawing the magic out of those components and using that power in spells._ And what component would be more powerful than a _Storm Dragon’s egg_?

“Dad?” Ezran’s voice was nervous, now.

Harrow realized his expression had darkened, and his brow had furrowed stormily. He forced himself to calm down. _Later,_ he told himself. _Later._ He sighed. “I need to speak with your father, tell him to come to the throne room,” he said, glancing back at Soren, before returning his gaze to Ezran. “We’ll send search parties out for Callum,” he promised, smiling weakly. “He’ll be fine, Ezran. He’ll be back in no time.”

Ezran swallowed and looked away. “That’s what he said, too,” he said.

“Well, your brother knows what he’s talking about,” said Harrow, and he noticed his voice was shaking slightly. “I’ll have the cooks send up some jelly tarts, okay? And I’ll be back here in just an hour or so, and we can talk. I need to set up the search party.” His face fell. “And talk to Viren.”

* * *

 

Among the many things about Callum that had come to impress Rayla in the past year was the way he was able to do things he was simply not built for.

In this case, walking through the night after a day awake, when he could barely even see the path in front of him, let alone the nearly-invisible Moonshadow Elves around him. He stumbled, he fell a few times, and once or twice he completely missed a turn Runaan led them down. On these occasions, she gently took his hand and pulled him back on course.

But he never once complained. Even when his water ran low, and even when she heard his stomach growling audibly beside her, he just gritted his teeth and kept walking. She shared her moonberry juice with him and did what she could to help him along, and he accepted her help with a grateful look, but not a sound escaped him.

The walk as a whole was silent. The other elves would speak in low voices with Runaan, and he would respond in kind, but Rayla was left with nothing but furtive, suspicious looks. Even Callum seemed lost in thought.

Eventually, the moon set. They’d crossed a vast distance, more than twenty-five miles. Even Rayla was tiring, despite the beating of the full moon on her skin. Callum practically swayed on his feet, and yet he made not a peep.

“We shall camp here,” Runaan announced.

Rayla watched Callum stumble over to the nearest tree and fall against it, sliding down the trunk with a grimace of pain, his hands fumbling to pull off his boots.

“Boy.” Runaan’s voice was almost warm. “Are you all right?”

“I’ll be fine,” said Callum, his voice hoarse. “I just need some sleep. Maybe a bit of magic for my feet.”

“You’re goin’ to use _glacies_ to cool your feet?” Rayla asked, amused.

“Don’t judge me,” he said, narrowing his eyes playfully at her—or rather, a few feet to the left of her—with a faint, pained smile.

“Do you have supplies?” Runaan asked.

“Some,” Callum said. “I didn’t have a lot of time to pack. My water’s out—are we near a stream? And I’ll need to find berries or something for food.”

“We should have enough moonberry juice, if you can drink that,” Runaan said.

“He can,” Rayla confirmed.

“Good. As to water, there is a river not far from here.” The older elf held out his hand. “I will take your waterskin and fill it, if you like.”

Callum blinked at him. His lips twitched up into a weary smile. “Thanks,” he said, handing over the bottle. “I appreciate it.”

Runaan nodded. “You’ll travel better if you’re healthy,” he said. “It’s still a few days’ travel to the Breach.”

“That’s pretty good time,” Callum said. “I hope I’m not leaving too much of a trail, though—soldiers on horseback will still outrun us.”

Runaan pursed his lips. “A good point,” he said. “We will have to find a way to lose the trail tomorrow night. For now, I expect we’re safe enough to take a day’s rest. I will fetch water, and take second watch.”

“I’ll take first watch,” Rayla offered.

“Not alone, you won’t,” said Syalla sharply. “I’ll stay up too.”

Rayla glanced at her. She thought about protesting, but in the end she just shrugged. “If you insist.”

They set up camp. Runaan slung the waterskins over his back and strode off. The other elves rolled out their thin straw mats on the ground and closed their eyes in the grey light of the early morning. Syalla perched on a branch, her eyes darting hither and thither, glittering blue in the twilight.

For her part, Rayla sat on a low branch above Callum’s head as he murmured draconic incantations to himself, sighing in relief as the newly-frozen grass cooled his aching feet.

“You feelin’ all right, Callum?” she asked, barely above a whisper.

When Callum didn’t reply, she wondered whether he’d heard her. But just before she spoke again, he murmured, “I’m okay. My body isn’t used to this kind of walking.”

 _My body._ Another reminder of their situation, of where— _when_ —they were. And that just reminded Rayla of who wasn’t with them. “I feel awful about shutting Ezran out like this,” she admitted.

“Yeah,” Callum agreed with a heavy sigh. “I wish… I didn’t want to leave him. But…” He shifted against the bark of the tree. From her vantage, it took her a moment to recognize the motion as a shrug. “He deserves better than getting dragged around the world, trying to hide from everyone, all the time.”

“It won’t come to that this time,” Rayla promised. “We’ll talk to Iliir, get things straight with the Sorcerer’s Conclave. Without the loomin’ war with the human kingdoms, they’ll be willin’ to listen this time. They’ll have to.”

“I hope you’re right, Rayla,” murmured Callum. “I just hope Viren and Harrow don’t push for war. There’s no knowing what my disappearance will do, how it’ll get spun.”

“Harrow’s a good man, by all accounts,” said Rayla. “He won’t be rash.”

“Have you forgotten that he killed Thunder?” Callum asked, his voice low and grim. “It might have been better if we’d allowed Runaan and the others to kill him. War might be inevitable anyway, but under Harrow, Katolis is united.”

Rayla looked down at him, her brow furrowing in concern. “How can you say that, Callum?” she asked, her voice gentle. “He’s your _father_.”

Callum didn’t reply for a few seconds. “I’m scared,” he admitted at last. “I’m scared of what Viren can do, what he might do. He and Harrow killed Thunder, and kidnapped Zym. What was that leading to, if not open war?”

“They want to come back to Xadia,” Rayla said. “Can you really blame them? Humanity’s been losin’ magic for hundreds of years now. You remember what Iliir said. If humanity isn’t allowed back into Xadia in the next two or three centuries, they’ll lose everything but Dark Magic.”

“And Old Magic,” Callum said, and there was something odd in his voice—a reluctance, as if the words were dragging themselves from him.

“That too,” Rayla agreed. “But—Viren _knows_ that, Callum. He has to, with how much research he’s done. He’s gettin’ desperate.”

“If only he could devote that kind of energy to researching what Dark Magic is doing to him,” Callum muttered.

“Besides,” Rayla said, “there’s nothin’ connectin’ your disappearance to Xadia. Nothin’ provable.”

“Who says Viren—or Harrow—need proof?” Callum asked. “Zym’s egg is gone, _I’m_ gone, and—” he cut himself off, then continued. “They’re already looking for war. They can plant evidence, or pin it on Xadia in some other way.”

“That’s why we have to get to Xadia quickly,” Rayla said. “If we can get to Iliir and the Conclave before they start gearin’ up for war, we might be able to talk some sense into them.”

“And what do we do if we can’t?” Callum asked, and his voice had risen slightly. Rayla noticed Syalla’s eyes on them. “What if we fail? What if it all happens the same—or worse?”

Rayla leapt down from the branch and put her arms around Callum. He tensed momentarily before melting into her embrace. “It won’t come to that, Callum,” she whispered in his ear. “We won’t let it.”

He buried his face in her shoulder and didn’t reply for a moment. “I need to tell you something,” he mumbled at last. “Somewhere there’s no chance we’ll be overheard.”

“Is it urgent?”

“Maybe. Probably not? I don’t know. I might have screwed up.”

She pulled away, held him at arm’s length, and studied his face. He met her eyes, but then broke his gaze away, looking to the side. “It’ll be okay,” she said. “We’ll talk when we have an opportunity, alright?”

He nodded. “I’m sorry I’m such a mess,” he said, and the wry smile Rayla had fallen in love with slipped onto his features like a familiar mask. “I’m so _tired_.”

Rayla remembered how dead on her feet she’d been after only one night awake since coming back to the past. Callum had been up for a full day before the night’s walk. “I’ll bet,” she said gently. “Get some rest. Runaan will be back with the water soon.”

Callum nodded as she let him go and leapt back into the branch above him. “Good night, Rayla,” he said, his voice already slurring slightly as he lay down.

She smiled into the twilight, watching the sky slowly bleed gold as the sun rose. “Good mornin’, Callum.”

* * *

 

“You called for me?” Viren’s voice came just before the man himself came into view around the heavy door of the throne room.

“Yes,” Harrow said darkly. He was about to launch into a tirade, but then he looked Viren in the eye and saw something he hadn’t seen in a long time.

Viren’s voice had been harried, but Harrow had paid no mind to that. This, though, this was unsettling. There were dark circles under Viren’s eyes. His teeth worried his lower lip constantly, seemingly without him noticing. His eyes darted hither and thither distractedly, as though he was worried something might appear in the corner of his view when he least expected it. His hair was unkempt, uncombed. Even his robes were crumpled and disheveled, as though he hadn’t removed them all night.

Viren looked worried. No—he looked _panicked_. And suddenly Harrow found himself wondering if Viren had taken Thunder’s egg for the purely selfish reasons he’d assumed.

“You look terrible,” he said.

Viren’s lips twitched into a smile, so quick that Harrow almost missed it entirely. “I feel it,” he said. “I was—I have news to report to you, too. But you summoned me—what do you need?”

“Prince Callum is gone.”

Viren blinked, and suddenly his attention was focused completely on Harrow. “Gone, you say?”

“If it’s Thunder’s egg you’re thinking about, yes. He took it with him. He found out you were going to use it for Dark Magic.”

Viren stared at him. “You knew?”

“Not until Ezran told me they’d found it in your little vault.” Harrow leaned forward. “Mind explaining that to me, _Lord Viren_?”

Viren flinched at the formal, impersonal address. “It’s not what you think.”

“Oh? Because I think you stole that egg to use it in a Dark ritual.”

“I—” Viren swallowed. “You’re not _wrong_ , but you’re missing part of the picture.”

“Enlighten me, then.” Harrow said through pursed lips. “Because, right now, it looks like your theft, and my son’s good heart, have led him out of the safety of the castle into goodness-knows-where.”

Viren grimaced. “Prince Callum is…” he swallowed. “If I’m right, Prince Callum is in far more danger than you think, Your Majesty. There’s a lot about this you don’t know. Catching you up may… take a while.”

“Then you can start by telling me _why I didn’t know about all this to begin with,_ ” Harrow thundered, glaring at his advisor. “ _Why_ did I not know you had stolen that egg?”

“Because you’re a good man!” Viren’s voice was sharp, but there was a hint of high-pitched desperation there, and his face was open and sincere. “You’re a _good man_ , Harrow! And that’s what Katolis needs, in a king! But it _also_ needs someone who’s willing to do the things a _good man_ would never do, in defense of the kingdom!”

“Like stealing a defenseless child to use them as a _power source_?” Harrow growled. “I thought better of you, Viren.”

Viren laughed, and the sound was almost frenzied. “That’s—you don’t even know why, but it’s really _rich_ ,” he said. “Do you have any idea what _they_ were going to do with that egg, once it hatched?”

Harrow blinked. His furious frown shifted, confusion seeping in. “What? I assume they were going to make it the next king.”

“And you just _assumed_ that meant the same thing for dragons as it does in Katolis?” Viren shook his head, his shoulders slumping. “That egg, if it hatched in Xadia, would have spelled the end of humanity— _all_ of humanity, not just Katolis. _Yes_ , I wanted to experiment with the egg, wanted to learn more about what a dragon could do for Dark Magic, but I didn’t have _any_ concrete plans for what to do with it—and I would have brought whatever I came up with to you before I used the egg in any spells!”

“You expect me to believe that?” Harrow asked. “After _this_?”

Viren swallowed. “No, I suppose that is unreasonable, isn’t it?” he asked, looking down. He looked defeated. “Harrow—Your Majesty—even if you believe nothing else, believe this. The egg wasn’t the only thing I took from Thunder’s lair—and I only took them, not because I thought they would be useful to us, but because allowing _Xadia_ to use them would have spelled our destruction.”

“What else did you take?”

Viren swallowed. “When Thunder died,” he said slowly. “You remember—a hurricane burst from his body. The entire regiment that had been closest to him were swept away in seconds. It killed indiscriminately—elves, humans, and dragons alike.”

Harrow’s rage faded slightly. “Yes,” he admitted. “We would have died without your barrier.”

“We would have died anyway, had we been even a few feet closer to Thunder,” Viren said. “Your Majesty, I told you then that it must have been an innate ability of storm dragons. That was a lie, and I told it because I couldn’t afford to let Xadia know how much _I_ know about magic.”

“I don’t understand.”

“If there was _any_ chance of Xadia finding out what I have in my library,” Viren said darkly, “they would muster all their forces, push across the breach, and slaughter the entirety of Katolis.”

“And what _is_ it that you have in your library that’s so dangerous?” Harrow demanded. “No more secrets, Viren. What are you hiding?”

Viren sighed. “ _This_ I didn’t tell you only because I didn’t think you would appreciate it,” he said. “I’m happy to tell you. Magic is divided into two—or three, if you ask the Xadians—forms. The one everyone knows about is Primal Magic, using the seven sources. Xadians separate the six original sources from Dark Magic, but Dark Magic is still Primal, whatever they say. The other form is the Old Magic. It was Old Magic that made Thunder explode on his death. In addition to the egg, I recovered a book of Old Magic from the dragon king’s lair. Beside that one, I have a few texts—only two or three—in my vault.”

“And the Xadians would attack us over two or three books?”

“They’d have reason to,” said Viren darkly. “Old Magic is… _deadly_. To everyone—the target, the caster, and anyone who happens to be nearby. Even the most benign spells can be horrific if they go wrong. And _this_ is what I was talking about when I said Callum was in more danger than you imagined.”

The bottom dropped out of Harrow’s stomach. “What do you mean?”

“You head about Callum’s disappearance from Prince Ezran?” Viren asked. “The boy knows the castle better than anyone. I’d bet he knows more than he’s telling. You and he should come with me—I’ll show you.”

* * *

 

Runaan came back not long after Callum fell asleep. He crossed the clearing silently, his feet barely making a sound on the soft turf. He laid Callum’s waterskin beside his head, and then looked up at Rayla. “Are you all right?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper, but still audible in the quiet morning.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You were dead on your feet last night, and you’ve slept precious little since,” he said.

“I’ve gotten used to workin’ on little sleep,” she said. “I’m _tired_ , but I’m not about to fall over or anythin’.”

He nodded, then looked down at the human sleeping at his feet. Rayla followed his gaze, letting her eyes rest on her best friend.

In the soft, pale light of the overcast morning, Callum’s face was washed-out, pale. No tension marred his features, there was no sign of the furrowed brow that so often appeared there. He looked peaceful, but less than healthy. Every so often, his face would twitch in something like a grimace, either as his aching muscles broke into his dreams, or as his dreams took a turn for the worse.

“He is very young.” Runaan’s voice was low and thoughtful.

“No younger than I am,” she said.

“Yes,” Runaan agreed quietly. “That is what is so startling.” He glanced up at her. “This… dream, this future you saw. It has wrought a change in you.”

“Yeah, seein’ everythin’ you care about be destroyed over the course of a year will do that to a person.”

“I imagine so.” Runaan’s brow was furrowed as his eyes roved over her face. “I am sorry that you had to see that.”

“Not as though it’s your fault, Runaan,” she said with a wry smile. “It is what it is, that’s all.”

“There are some things for which I _am_ to blame, however,” said Runaan, almost to himself, looking back down at Callum. “He is so very _young_ ,” he said, and there was something in his voice that made Rayla think he wasn’t talking about Callum at all.

“He’s proven himself, young or not,” said Rayla. “He’s held more magic in his fingertips than I once though existed. It was thanks to him that the dragon prince survived long enough to hatch.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes. He nearly froze to death in his egg, but Callum broke his Primal Stone and released the thunderstorm inside. Sky Dragons need a storm to hatch.”

Runaan hummed thoughtfully. “It must have been dangerous,” he said quietly. “The storm could have done untold harm to him and anyone in the area.”

“It was worth the risk. We weren’t about to let everythin’ go to waste by having Zym die on us.”

“Zym?”

“Er, Azymondias. The dragon prince. It’s his name.”

Runaan blinked up at her. “The prince told you his name? His _draconic_ name?”

“Well, yes.” Rayla frowned. “Is that unusual?”

Runaan nodded slowly. “By tradition, a dragon’s draconic name is kept a closely guarded secret. Each name is, after all, a word in draconic—in the right hands, such words might be dangerous.”

“You think they could be used as words of power for Primal magic?”

“ _I_ have no opinion on the matter. I am no mage.” He glanced down at Callum again. “I wonder what your friend might have to say on the matter.”

“He’d probably know,” Rayla admitted, gazing down at the young man below her. “He’s only known he’s a mage for a year, but he knows more about magic than almost anyone else I’ve met. He just soaks it up.”

Runaan hummed thoughtfully, then looked up at her, his eyes narrowed. “What is he to you, Rayla?” he asked. “You clearly care about him.”

“He’s—” Rayla’s voice caught. What _was_ Callum to her, in the end? Her best friend, her confidant, the one person she could always depend on in a world gone mad? How could she ever impress something like that on Runaan? How could anyone who hadn’t lived through the end of the world understand the kind of _anchor_ Callum had been to Rayla?

And, now that she thought about it, how might Runaan react? He was still steeped in the old ways of thinking, his mind still treading the familiar roads of _elf good, human evil_ that had tainted Xadia for the past ten centuries. How would he react if he knew just how close they had become? If he knew that Rayla’s first kiss had been a human—and the son of the man they had come here to assassinate?

“He’s my best friend,” she said at last. “He… by the end, he was the last one I really trusted, the last one I really felt like _myself_ with.”

“I see,” Runaan said quietly, and his tone made Rayla wonder if maybe, just maybe, he actually did. “And—did I ever meet him, in this future you saw?”

Rayla swallowed. “No.”

Runaan nodded slowly. “Thank you for telling me.” He looked down at Callum again. “I look forward to coming to know him, then.”

“He always wanted to meet you,” Rayla confided. It was true, though not the whole truth.

 _He sounds like an amazing person,_ Callum had said, once, _but he also brought a fifteen-year-old girl to assassinate King Harrow. Guess we all have our little problems._

Runaan chuckled softly. “For obvious reasons, I am glad he will get the chance,” he said. “You should rest, Rayla. I will take this watch.”

Rayla nodded and leapt off her branch. “Thanks, Runaan.”

She quickly unrolled her mat and set it up on the ground. Part of her wanted to hang propriety and curl up beside the human, but Runaan perched on the branch above her, and the risk of waking him after the long night’s walk, kept her at least a short distance away. Still, as she lay on her side, she made sure he was within her view.

When last she’d slept, she’d never imagined she’d see Callum— _her_ Callum—ever again. Now he was sleeping not twenty feet from her. A bubble of joy ballooned in her chest like the burn of a warm drink.

 _We won’t let it go wrong again, Callum,_ she promised silently. _You deserve better._ We _deserve better._

His face, pale and smooth, relaxed in sleep, was the last thing she saw before her eyes slid shut.

* * *

 

“Ezran?” Dad knocked gently on the door. “Are you in there?”

“I’m here, Dad,” said Ezran, staring at the plate of jelly tarts—still mostly full. Bait had taken a few, but he was insisting that Ezran eat before he took anymore. Ezran had tried, he really had, but he just had no appetite right now. _I’m here._ The word’s echoed in his head. _I’m here, and Callum isn’t._

Dad opened the door gently. His eyes darted to the plate of uneaten tarts, then to Ezran’s face. “Not hungry?” he asked sympathetically.

“Not really,” Ezran admitted, looking up at his father. “What’s happening? Are the search parties out?” _Not that they’ll find anything._

“Yes,” Dad said with a nod. But—I talked to Lord Viren. He says there’s something you and I should see.”

Ezran swallowed. He remembered what Callum and Rayla had said about Viren— _Make sure he doesn’t make Dad do anything stupid_. But how was he supposed to do that? What was he supposed to do?

“Ezran?” Dad said, concern in every line of his face.

“Yeah, okay,” Ezran said with a sigh. Surely there was no harm in going with Dad, right? In fact, wasn’t that the idea—try to be there when Dad and Lord Viren talked? Make sure he knew where things were going? He swung his legs off the side of the bed. “Let’s go.”

He followed Dad out of the room, down the corridor, and across the catwalk to Viren’s office. The High Mage was waiting there, staring at an engraved mirror.  He peered at them through it as they arrived. “Ah, Your Majesty, Prince Ezran. Thank you for being quick, this is important.”

“It had better be, Viren,” growled Dad, and for once Ezran didn’t shrink back when he heard his father’s anger. He just glared at Viren— _egg-thief!_ —himself.

“It _is_ ,” Viren insisted, throwing a cloth over the mirror and turning towards the portrait behind which, Ezran knew, was the entrance to the secret vault. He pulled the picture aside and stepped into the passage. “Follow me.”

He led them down—past the egg chamber, with only a moment to point it out—and down the the second room Callum had taken Ezran down to the day before.

There was the book, still sitting where Callum had left it, chained down on the podium. Viren approached it with far less caution than Callum had, striding over directly and pulling out a key to undo the lock.

“That book,” Harrow said slowly. “It’s the one you mentioned, yes? The one you took from Thunder’s lair?”

“Yes,” Viren said, gingerly pulling the chains away—and _now_ he was being careful, every bit as careful as Callum had been. Carefully he brushed off the cover, emblazoned with golden runes and painted in red and yellow. “This is the Pyronomicon.”

Callum had said that name, too. The name sent shivers down Ezran’s spine, somehow, as if the name itself were a spell. Beside him, his father twitched slightly, and Ezran knew he felt it too. “What… _is_ it?” Dad asked.

“It is a book of Spells of elemental Fire,” said Viren quietly, gingerly thumbing through the pages. Just as Callum had been, he was careful not to open the book properly. “Each of the Spells in these pages is completely Unique. All are dangerous. Some are less so—Firebolt can kill a man, but only one. Some are more—Fireball can kill twenty men in a moment, Sunburst could kill a dragon. But on the Spells in these pages, one is supreme.” Viren’s fingers stopped around the five-sixths mark of the pages, just as Callum’s had. He opened the book.

Blank paper stared back at them.

“It’s… blank?”

“Old Magic, once learned, vanishes from the book where it was originally bound,” Viren said grimly. “The final Spell in this book was a Greater Spell—a Spell so powerful, so old, that the very knowledge of its existence was considered dangerous even when Old Magic was common knowledge. This Spell could level a city in a matter of moments. In skilled hands, it could destroy a province—a kingdom—a continent. It is called Supernova.”

“And it’s gone,” said Harrow, his voice weak.

“Yes,” said Viren. “So tell me, Prince Ezran…” he turned to Ezran, but the prince didn’t look at him. His eyes were fixed on the empty pages before him. “…Did Prince Callum tell you _that_ , when you led him down here?”

“No,” mumbled Ezran weakly. “No, he didn’t.” _Callum, what the heck did you get into?_

“Ezran,” Viren said gently. “I don’t know what Callum told you, I don’t know what _he_ thinks is going on, but he is in terrible, terrible danger. If he loses control of that Spell—something that could happen to even a very experienced mage—it could detonate, killing him and everyone within up to a hundred miles.”

Ezran swallowed but said nothing.

“If he _dies_ ,” Viren continued, “about the same would happen. But if he is found by someone who _knows he has that Spell_ … that would be far worse. The process of extracted a Spell from the mind of a mage is…” It was at that moment that Viren did something which convinced Ezran completely. He shuddered. It was an involuntary action—Ezran knew body language well enough to tell. _Lord Viren_ was shuddering in something like horror. “… _Excruciating_. And Xadian mages would be able to tell. So please, Prince Ezran. If you know _anything_ about what Prince Callum is up to—I’m begging you to tell us. For his sake, and all of ours.”

Ezran swallowed, staring at the Pyronomicon, and the space where Callum’s Spell had been. _I need to take this so Viren doesn’t use it,_ Callum had said. _Please don’t tell Rayla. There’s no time for me to argue with her. If I don’t, he’ll use it—like he did last time._

But… _Xadian Mages would be able to tell._ Viren seemed like he was being honest. Maybe Ezran was being naïve, to think that. He’d believed the racoons once.

There was so much he didn’t know. He didn’t know anything about this—magic, Old Magic, Spells and Greater Spells… he didn’t know where to start with all of this.

But his brother was traveling with some elf girl who had been sent to assassinate Dad. He was going to Xadia. And in his head was a spell which, if Viren was to be believed, could destroy Katolis.

A few days ago, the idea of tattling on Callum would have been unthinkable. But, then again, the idea of Callum doing something that might warrant tattling would have been even more unthinkable. Now… Ezran didn’t know what to think.

And however much he trusted Callum, he didn’t trust Rayla.

“Prince Ezran?” Viren asked gently. “Please—if Callum is doing what I think he’s doing, he could—with perfectly good intentions—cause the deaths of everyone in Katolis, himself included.”

“What do you think he’s doing, Viren?” Harrow asked in hushed tones.

“He thinks Callum is going to Xadia,” Ezran said, meeting the High Mage’s eyes. “He thinks he’s going to return the dragon prince to his mother, to try to reconcile the elves and dragons with humanity. And… and he’s right.” _I’m so sorry, Callum._

Harrow breathed in sharply, but Virenjust nodded grimly. “I suspected as much.” He straightened up. “I have no idea where Prince Callum learned magic,” he said, “but he stole Claudia’s Primal Stone, as well. With that, Thunder’s egg, and Supernova, he is now probably the most dangerous magical entity in the world. We _must_ retrieve him before he crosses the border into Xadia.”

“Yes,” said Harrow, in a soft, horrorstruck voice. “Yes, we must. Oh, _Callum_.”

“And what happens when we do?” Ezran asked. “Say we get him back. Say the egg comes back here. What then? Xadia isn’t going to forgive you for killing their king and breaking—or kidnapping—his egg, his son. What then—we just go to war?”

“Only if it comes to that,” said Viren, looking down at Ezran thoughtfully. “You’re shrewder than I gave you credit for, Prince Ezran, if you’re thinking this far ahead already.”

“How could it _not_ come to that?” Ezran asked furiously, glaring at Viren and then at his dad. He knew he was lashing out, he knew this was coming as much from his guilt over letting Callum down as actual anger, and that another part of it was his bitterness that Callum had abandoned him for some elf girl. He knew, but that didn’t help him stem the tide. “Why would you _want_ war? Even if you had to kill King Thunder—why kidnap his son? Why can’t you just _make peace already_?”

Viren sighed. “There’s so much you don’t know about this,” he said quietly.

“So _tell me_. If I’m going to rule Katolis one day, I need to know why it’s going to be at war when I do!”

“I took this book from the King Thunder’s lair,” said Viren quietly. “Beside it was a notebook left by an elven sorcerer. Those notes explained what they intended to do with Supernova.”

Ezran blinked at the change of subject. “What…?”

“When King Thunder died, his death released a Hurricane,” Viren said softy, his knuckles white on his staff, his eyes distant. “That was a Greater Spell, like Supernova. It was implanted in Thunder when he was first hatched—tradition, apparently. Storm Dragons are considered by Xadia to be suitably safe containers for the Old Magic.” Viren’s eyes met Ezran’s again. “There were two things beside that egg,” he said quietly. “The Pyronomicon, and that book of notes. Do you know what they were going to do with that dragon, once it hatched?”

Ezran’s face fell. “Oh. Oh, no.”

“They were going to implant Supernova into the young prince,” said Viren quietly. “Once he grew up—not long, since Storm Dragons mature in only a year or so—he would have been used to crush Katolis, the human kingdom closest to the border, once and for all.” Viren’s staff thudded against the stone floor. “I know you think I’ve been selfish,” he said. “And I admit—I’m not a good person. I was willing to use the egg to fuel Dark Magic, if and when I found a spell that could use such a powerful component. I _did_ kidnap a child from its mother. It was my magic that killed Thunder and put the world on the brink of war. I’ve done other things that, maybe, I should regret.

“But every _single_ one of these things, I did out of love for this kingdom and its people. I took the egg, not out of a greedy desire to study Dark Magic, but to prevent Xadia from using it to destroy us. I took the Pyronomicon, not because I wanted to use any of the Spells in its pages, but to prevent the elves from using Supernova to destroy us. And, yes, I am _willing_ to use those weapons against them. But my first priority is _protecting us_. Not destroying them.” He looked up at Dad, and his eyes were sad. “But… I understand that I should have been more forthright with you from the beginning, Harrow. I’m sorry. Some of this knowledge, the Old Magic, is dangerous even to know, and I’ve gotten used to your eyes glazing over when I start to go on about theoretical magic. But you’re right, I should have told you all this much sooner. For that, and for my part in Callum’s disappearance, I’m deeply sorry.”

Dad stared at the mage for a moment. “We need to talk more about this,” he said. “But, for now, let’s table it. We need to redirect the search. We _have_ to find Callum before he gets to Xadia. We know which direction he’s going—that’s a big start.”

“He’s not traveling alone,” Ezran blurted.

They both stared at him. “What do you mean, Ezran?” Dad asked.

Ezran swallowed. _In for a penny…_

He told them everything.

* * *

 

**From the Desk of Archmage Iliir:**

_Sapiothaumy: Use, Misuse, and Containment_

_To the scholar of rarer magic, one warning is often repeated as a mantra: ‘An Old Magic Grimoire is an accident waiting to happen.’ While true, this rather misses the point._

_The Grimoire is, in many cases, the most secure way to store Spells. A book is, after all, inert. Though the Spells trapped within the pages are never fully without power, they are far nearer to it than they are within the mind of a weak-willed creature. So long as the Grimoire is kept under non-magical lock and key—for any magical lock will be subject to manipulation by the Spells stored beneath it—it is likely to remain relatively safe, as long as everyone likely to interact with it is fully apprised of the dangers._

_The risk, of course, emerges when someone not so inoculated to the risks interacts with a Grimoire. Horror-stories of Grimoires being found by low-level assistants and mages-in-training abound. In all such stories, the book is always left foolishly unlocked, or the key to the lock is left in the room with the book. The moral, the lesson taught to newer researchers, is to be careful with their equipment, and to always keep track of their locks and keys. This moral entirely fails to grasp the true danger of the Old Magic, and the books in which it is precariously contained._

_Are the so-called ‘scholars’ of today so foolish as to think that the Grand Warlock Beleneus, who was able to win a wizard’s duel without firing a single spell, was forgetful enough to leave the Aquavo unsecured for his apprentice to find? Do people truly believe that Uthremys Greenstone left the Virulex open on his reading-desk? Of course not._

_The true lesson is this: No matter the medium, no matter where they are or how they are stored, no matter how secure they have been made, Spells—and especially Greater Spells—are **never** safe. They are never fully tamed. And they always long to be freed—to be **read** , and then to be **cast**._

_The risk is not that a mage will forget to secure a Grimoire. The risk is that unintended eyes will find it, no matter how secure. The only known way to ensure that a Grimoire is not read by someone unprepared for it is to ensure that anyone who has any chance of encountering the text already knows what that text contains and knows better than to take the Spells within on themselves._

_For, lest it be forgotten, no elf or human has ever held a Greater Spell in their minds for long. The only truly safe way to store a Greater Spell is to have it be learned by a higher Dragon. All other minds are doomed to fail, one way or another._


End file.
